Posted
by
timothy
on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @11:48AM
from the innocent-whistling dept.

MojoKid writes: Despite significant user outcry that Microsoft Windows 10 upgrade mechanism has gone rogue, installing on customers' Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 machines when their backs were turned or they were otherwise away from the computer, Microsoft is pleading innocent. News broke of the automatic Windows 10 upgrades over the weekend, and in nearly every case, it was claimed Windows 10 installed without user intervention. Microsoft issued the following statement regarding the alleged unplanned upgrades: "We shared in late October on the Windows Blog, we are committed to making it easy for our Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 customers to upgrade to Windows 10. As stated in that post, we have updated the upgrade experience to make it easier for customers to schedule a time for their upgrade to take place. Customers continue to be fully in control of their devices, and can choose to not install the Windows 10 upgrade or remove the upgrade from Windows Update (WU) by changing the WU settings." However, users are still reporting the Windows 10 has allegedly forcefully taken over their machines. Hundreds and maybe thousands of users and IT admins are still chiming in on various threads around the web that they've "been had" by Microsoft.

Happened to me last week as well. I have a desktop at my parents house running non genuine Windows 7. It shouldn't be able to run updates ever, but when I booted it after quite a while of sleeping, the Windows 10 update began. There wasn't even a mouse of keyboard plugged into the machine, so I'm sure it was not my parents.

Actually I'm still assuming user error. So lets talk about what just happened to me today. Literally 4 hours ago. I'm currently tasked with spinning up a test environment for a Thycotic server. As such, I spun up a fresh VM using our Server 2012 R2 master in VMware. It was updated last month so after install it was finding roughly 24 optional updates. Again, this is a fresh, un-configured image.
After the updates completed and the box rebooted I began prepping it for a dcpromo. Now, I'm not sure if it was related to opening IE, or something else, but I was prompted with one of those server 2012 blue bars telling me to click here to upgrade to win10.
On server 2012 R2, enterprise license. Now, if I was average joe crazy clicker, I would have accidentally installed win10 onto my fucking DC. But I'm not, I pay close careful attention to what I'm doing.
So, sure, your wife's system might have upgraded to win7 over the weekend. After someone in your family crazy clicked that popup. It wouldn't be a blue bar on win7, but it would popup and offer you an free upgrade right now just click here.
I have yet to see a single documentation case of this actually happening without user intervention. And before you flip out, go ahead and grab the entire systems event logs, export it to a readable format, remove any identifying information, and I'll show you exactly when someone decided to install this.

However, someone above reported an "upgrade" happening on an unattended machine with no mouse or keyboard attached.

This is/. people who haven't used Windows versions newer than XP have made all sorts of wild claims about what it has or hasn't done lately.

I haven't seen any systems pushed to Windows 10 at all that weren't somehow user initiated.

People simply don't read what they click on, then deny they clicked on anything at all. I've literally WATCHED it happen live hundreds of time when doing remote screen-sharing support.

Other people will have had their kids click on it.

And Win10 update does have a few quirks, where it will 'confirm and reserve your upgrade today' and then due to missing hardware support defer your upgrade until drivers available. My Mom's old laptop was like that, windows 10 showed up several months after she'd first tried to update it.

I'm not saying it's outright impossible that MS has pushed the update without user confirmation on some systems due to a bug or some other issue. But I'd say the VAST majority are people who did confirm it and either don't even realize they confirmed it, or had someone else who uses the system confirm it, or who are just posturing on slashdot, or claiming other peoples anecdotes as their own (where the 'other person' probably clicked update without reading it...)

It almost happened to one of my work computers over the weekend. We still keep some Windows 7 computers for development and testing because the majority of our customers still use various incarnations of it. This computer was configured for manual updates, thankfully, and we routinely hide all the Windows 10-related "security updates". On Friday I left with 21 updates pending and returned on Monday with just 1 update pending, which I thought was very odd. Checking the list of updates it had deselected all other updates and ticked only the "Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro, version 1511, 10586" item. Fucking Microsoft.

[...]and can choose to not install the Windows 10 upgrade or remove the upgrade from Windows Update (WU) by changing the WU settings."

(emphasis mine)

From what I see of that quote, so long as you intentionally tell the system to *not* push Windows 10 on your box, it will just do it whenever Microsoft and Windows Update decide to push it in.

In the eyes of the typical user (who does not read tech blogs or suchlike, let alone dork around with their Windows Update settings), this appears by all counts to be a 'forced' push of Windows 10 onto their box.

It runs the rollback routine and sets you back to Windows 7. However, the terrible thing about that, is the snapshot seems to occur right before it installs Windows 10, which includes having the Get Windows 10 program open with a running countdown.

Forcing upgrades against the users choice behind their backs is nuts, really right out their crazy, basically taking over end user computers. Do you not realise that is a criminal act, it's their computer, it's their connection to the internet and M$ are committing a computer crime by hacking it, especially considering the privacy invasive nature of the hack pretty much the equivalent to installing back orifice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. There is no sound logical reason to do so, to so push the bou

MS hasn't pushed Win 10 to domain-joined machines.Your 30+ machines are either on a domain, using WSUS instead of Windows Update, or you're lying.

You seem to be vehemently defending MS and denying that any pushing is going on.Further, you never see Windows 10 as an update in Windows Update. Various updates, in various categories (optional, recommended, important), at various times have installed various versions of the Get Windows 10 "app" since this shit started.

If you're claiming that this never happened to you on 30+ machines, then you haven't used Windows Update on those 30+ machines in the past 6 months or you're a fucking liar.

I haven't seen this Windows 10 update on my Win7 box! It is probably because I don't install any updates ever and have the widows updates turned to do not download, do not notify. I trust the malware infections I might get from pirated software more than I trust Microsoft.

False. GWX is being pushed onto domain joined equipment, and if not for GWX control panel, *WILL* begin installing Win 10, even on Domain joined computers with Windows 10 updates disabled, and/or KB3035583 hidden/disabled.

As noted, MS used a trojan horse to reactivate even if you blocked KB3035583.

It looks like the KBs in question are KB3146449 and KB3139929. Issue is summarized in this article: http://www.ghacks.net/2016/03/09/security-update-ms16-023-installs-new-get-windows-10-functionality/

Even so, the claim that "users remain totally in control" is false. When you have to download a third-party exe someone created in their spare time and just happened to share freely with others in order to rid your computer of microsoft malware and get it to stop nagging you about the upgrade, users are not "totally in control."

Ironically, I was open to the idea of upgrading until I saw how bizarrely insistent MS was about the upgrade. When I began to hear stories of stealth upgrades, I ran, not walked, to the "GWX Control Panel" app and installed it. Anything that MS is this crazy insistent about has to be up to something very, very bad behind the scenes.

If you're claiming that this never happened to you on 30+ machines, then you haven't used Windows Update on those 30+ machines in the past 6 months or you're a fucking liar.

Christ, calm down. As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I've seen (and evaded) it on one out of four Win7 machines at my house; not a whisper on the other three. It's entirely possible that 30 machines could skate on this.

MS hasn't pushed Win 10 to domain-joined machines.
Your 30+ machines are either on a domain, using WSUS instead of Windows Update, or you're lying.

You seem to be vehemently defending MS and denying that any pushing is going on.
Further, you never see Windows 10 as an update in Windows Update. Various updates, in various categories (optional, recommended, important), at various times have installed various versions of the Get Windows 10 "app" since this shit started.

If you're claiming that this never happened to you on 30+ machines, then you haven't used Windows Update on those 30+ machines in the past 6 months or you're a fucking liar.

It doesn't auto-push. These people have clicked the Windows button in the system tray and shown interest. Then they cancel it.
We have over 120k machines on our network. Less than 1/3 use a domain. The "Upgrade to Windows 10" button appeared on nearly every machine but never once has it been forced. We've since pushed the GSX patch after a couple idiots ran the upgrade on encrypted machines resulting in full data loss.

It auto downloads itself over and over on my personal machine despite removing all the Windows 10 and associated "telemetry" updates, putting several entries in my registry that MS recommends to stop it, etc. Every fucking month they reissue the patch and "oopsie" it gets pushed to users who have settings that should block it.

It hasn't self-installed yet, but it forces the download. I have patches set to download automatically but not install, and recommended updates are OFF. WU is ignoring the fact that all Windows 10 shit is optional or recommended and downloading it anyway. No other optional/recommended update is predownloaded in this manner. (And of course, there was the "mistake" where it was previously pushed as "important" a couple months back.)

If I had patches set to automatically install as most other users do, then I would have had to restore from backup (again, regardless of my choices to block Windows 10 and to NOT get recommended updates).

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.That someone in MS made an error and flipped a switch for a patch, or made the default timeout action for a requester being "accept" or any other possibilities are, well, possible. And doesn't imply malicious actions, only stupidity, ignorance, recklessness or all of the above, combined with management that repeat what they THINK should happen as if it is what happens.

I saw my first GWX popup on a domain joined computer last week, on a DC with GPOs where anything related to Windows 10 updates has been blocked. That should not be possible. Yet it happened.

Do you not find it remarkable that each and every one of these... "incompetent" mistakes are always in their favor?

No. There are plenty of bugs and misconfigs that are not in Microsoft's favor. Some of them take years to get discovered. That there is a Patch Tuesday speaks to the volume of errors not in Microsoft's favor.

And there are some that are in favor of the users, and not Microsoft. Like the Genuine Windows verification error that existed once upon a time, where you could still install patches as long as you unplugged networking while installing them. Or the unintentional way one could upgrade from a home se

No there has been a change. My wife's machine updated to windows 10 without interaction from her. That said though it did pop up numerous windows saying it was going to upgrade on a certain day at least a week in advance, so she could have stopped it. However it required her input for it to not happen rather than to happen.

They have certainly tricked a few people into doing it.Funny how with all the popups (adobe, nvidia, ms, etc) the malware style ANNOYING attention seeking behaviour has gone mainstream. It makes an MS machine almost useless as a media PC and much less useful as a gaming platform. A few times I've been fighting some critter in Skyrim and the full screen window minimises to be replaced with the desktop and some annoying popup appears telling me some new software is ready to download.

Which reminds me updates. So I went to look. Oh, 23 updates waiting. Every single one of them it titled "Update for Windows 8.1 for x64-based systems (KB3xxxxxx). Every single one of them is described as "Install this update to resolve issues in Windows. For a complete listing o fthe issues that are included in this update, see the associated Microsoft Knowledge Base article for more information. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer."

Seriously every single update looks like this. It's been that way for a long time now, with the only variants being whether it's a basic, critical, or security update. Every. Single. Update! They do not want the user to easily read what's in the updates. And I can tell you that I have seem many of these updates which did NOT resolve issues in Windows unless "issue" is very loosely interpreted (such as needing an upgrade to support Azerbaijan language).

And "you may have to restart" means exactly that: you may or may not need to restart. They don't want to actually come out and tell you which it is. Any other company would get excoriated over this sort of support.

I've got 30+ Windows 7 machines, and I've never seen it in Windows Update as an update. Maybe just for pirated versions of Windows 7?

I've got 4 Windows 7 machines, and I've seen it in Windows Update on one of them. Barely caught it - went to shut down the laptop at the end of a session, and noticed the little yellow flag on the Shutdown button that means, "I'm going to install updates during the shutdown sequence". Instead of shutting down, I went to Control Panel and looked at the list of pending updates. The "Upgrade to Windows 10" was right at the top of the list. I unchecked it, and haven't seen it since.

To steal a line from Mel Brooks "bullshit bullshit aaaaaaannnnnnndddd BULLSHIT!"

I can CONFIRM as it happened to a "granny box" I was planning on running WSUS Offline on, I had just hooked it to the wireless at the shop when I got a call my mom was rushed to the hospital, naturally I took off and completely forgot about the thing and when I got back I started stripping the parts off some rough looking Lenovo boxes and looking up what CPUs they can take and never thought about the system....until I heard its HDD grinding away and flipped the monitor on to see WTF was going on...and found a FULLY INSTALLED Windows 10 with the EULA staring me in the face. I of course declined and it managed to restore Win 7...only to be showing a countdown for Win 10 to install! I had to GWX Control Panel its ass to keep Win 10 from reinstalling.

If you read above and below me? Same exact pattern, found a fully installed Win 10 with EULA, declined, had to wait while it restored, only to have a countdown. There was NO interaction by me or anybody else, it was sitting in the corner with ONLY security updates set to install.

It's downloading the files to provide you that almost instant upgrade. Having the files downloaded does not install win10 onto your machine, but it does mean that if you do click install, it will start installing right there, no waiting for 16 gigs of bullshit.

Did you read the article that you posted? The EULA comes up after installation of Windows 10, as they say here:

"The EULA is presented to users at the The EULA is presented to users at the completion of the update process. This is the final step."

So after you decline, it has to go back and uninstall Windows 10. And don't think this process is going to be completely bug-free. And when you hit "Decline" it even says it will "attempt to restore your previous OS" and "the process may take considerable time". If that doesn't scare some users, I don't know what will. And, yes, this happened to me. And I didn't "reserve" my copy of Windows 10. Every time that stupid "Install Windows 10" pop-up came up, it gave me two options "Install now" or "Install later". I kept hitting later. Yes, I should have looked up how to stop that shit in the first place and intended to at some point. But you know what, every time I got on my Windows box, I had shit to do other than try to figure out how to keep Microsoft from installing something I never asked for. So then the other day, I come to my computer and it already upgraded. I was pissed. And then I get the EULA with the option to decline. I would consider myself pretty computer savvy, working in the industry for over 15 years, using Linux, Windows and Mac OX daily. Even I had to stop and consider if hitting "Decline" would then just blow away my entire computer and require a reinstall. So would I blame a regular user from not taking that chance? No.

So yeah, if you want to keep thinking this only happened to non-savvy computer users, go right ahead. But this whole process was bullshit.

My own machine downloaded Windows 10, again, over the weekend for no fucking reason.

I've set all manner of registry keys that MS recommends for blocking the update.I've hidden the updates that give you Windows 10.I've removed all the updates that give you the Get Windows 10 "app".I've run GWX Configuration tool.I've told Windows to NOT give me recommended updates the same way I receive important updates.I've told Windows to download updates but not install them.

And this is why I don't have Windows running anywhere in my house - with multiple computers, I could see Microsoft totally raping the bandwidth caps on my rural Satellite Internet connection... and rural 3G/4G Internet users likely wouldn't get any relief from it either.:/

Speaking of which, I wonder if Microsoft could be found liable for any extra expenses incurred as a result of such a use case?

They already sell it. You have to buy it if you build a new machine - you can't even transfer a free upgrade from an old computer, and there's still a Microsoft tax on new PCs.

Free upgrades might be periodically available for big OS updates (no more releases or service packs, so they say). But I bet this kind of push is a one off, and the further back you are, the less likely you'll be bothered. Vista users aren't pestered with Windows 10 upgrades because the OS is considered too old and 10 year old hard

I dont know what the " GWX Configuration tool" is but I use the updated "GWX Control Panel"

Yes, that.I ran it once in the beginning, once a while back, and once over the weekend.

The problem is MS keeps changing the game. I'd rather not install GWX Control Panel in watchdog mode, especially since whenever MS changes the game there's some delay before GWX Control Panel can react. Killing Windows Update entirely and blocking everything MS at my router seems like a better idea at this point.

It's not Bullshit! It happened to my work computer and several of my co-workers! We were told by our IT department several times not to upgrade. I can't remember how many times I had to decline the offer to upgrade to Windows 10 -- and still the damned machine was upgraded! So frustrating!

You might want to read this article from a senior editor of Infoworld who systematically tested and confirmed this on a Windows 7 virtual machine with the default windows update settings. He even explicitly unchecked the Windows 10 update, only for it to be re-selected automatically and auto-installed overnight without his consent:
http://www.infoworld.com/artic... [infoworld.com]

On the few Linux installs that I've done outside of business' the users rarely call except to learn how to do something. Not because it is "broken". Business' get Linux servers and, well, never call.

On the Mac installs they almost never call too. Except to learn how to do something because they can't use Google. I *know* virus' exist on the Mac (it is my personal desktop), but that never seems to be a problem.

On the Windows installs I make a killing. Cleaning up virus', removing bloat they accidentally install, etc. I don't trust Microsoft. Makes perfect sense to me.

Hold on. My employer uses systems that are almost exclusively Microsoft based. For me to do my job for them, I have to know my way around Visual Studio. I have to know my way around Windows 7 and Windows Server versions 2008 & 2012. I have to know C# and Visual Basic as Microsoft puts out. I have to have at least one system at home inside the Microsoft Ecosystem (one Laptop with Windows 7 Enterprise) that I can use to perform any work from home duties during my on-call time. This in no way implies that I trust anything from Microsoft, especially in their current mode of ignoring customer wishes and essentially forcing Windows 10 upon any unsuspecting user's throat without adequate warning. Just because my Employer seems to implicitly trust MS in their endeavors doesn't mean that I must also share in that trust.

If MS does anything against my employer's trust that doesn't affect me beyond me being able to perform my job, it is still my employer's responsibility to either train me in the new ecosystem (MS support would be coming in to perform classes for all affected employees as part of the service contract), or spend the time returning the ecosystem to a state in which I can resume my duties. In either case I get paid for my time being a warm body in place. On my personal systems I don't trust MS not to screw with my home ecosystem, so it is then my responsibility that I make sure to mitigate my risks in that regard.

So in contrast to your statement, me making a living using Microsoft Software and me distrusting Microsoft are not mutually exclusive by any means.

Unfortunately, it makes all too much sense, if you consider that the GP might have trusted the Microsoft of whenever they bought Windows 7 but no longer trust the Microsoft of 2016. MS under Nadella is a very different organisation to MS under Gates and even Ballmer.

You are joking right? I.T.'s relationship with Microsoft has ALWAYS been adversarial. If there was a better choice out there for their use-cases, people would drop MS in a second because they are fucking dicks to work with. My Linux installs will NEVER reboot without me explicitly telling it to (barring a hardware/software fault). Cant say the same for a WIndows machine and that is a big deal for a LOT of people.

The popup before the forced install said "do you want to install Windows 10 now, or download it for installation later". Either of those option is consent to install Windows 10. You probably selected "download for later installation" thinking you'd have a chance to refuse the installation. What you should have done is click the close-box top right.

Yep, that is my experience as well. When you click the "download and install later" option, that's it, the update will now be carried out and you have no way to cancel it. The dialog box that is presented to you before the final update [winsupersite.com] does not have a cancel button or a close button or any other means to not carry the installation out, you can delay the installation by some days, but you have to set a date for the install, there is no "ask me later".

That was my experience as well. EXCEPT I had successfully rescheduled it several times AND THEN one night, it started upgrading without warning me. IT threw me off without a restart notice, there was no countdown that you mentioned. I was very disappointed to lose what I had been writing in a web app hosted by my Uni caused by the sudden and unexpected restart.

We have some old machines which are clearly unable to run Windows 10. They barely run Windows 7. Yet, they keep getting notifications to upgrade to Windows 10, and list it on available updates. It is never going to run on a Pentium M or D machine. Microsoft, include a hardware check before you try to push it!

You are such a pompous ass who thinks that users are stupid and incompetent --no wonder Microsoft hired you! Please stop your obvious astroturfing.

Uh yeah.

MS would be sued into an oblivion if they pushed this on PC's. People do not watch what they click. Of course if anyone disagrees they must be a MS employee because everyone views things the exact same way

I'm gonna call bullshit on this one. The way Microsoft trick you into installing the update is despicable, but if automatic updates were indeed turned off then she must have at least been tricked into a manual install.

Has this happened to real people at Slashdot, or is this disinformation propagated by ACs? Cause from here, it looks like disinformation...
But hey, as this is proprietary software, it could be an ugly and illegal piece of A/B testing. It could. Still, no proof seen here. My Windows 7 boxes are doing fine (and my Windows 10 too, BTW).

Yesterday I had a customer call because one of his PCs has updated to Windows 10 without asking. According to the user, she had come back to her PC to see the update already installing. Of course I cannot know if that is the complete story, users are notoriously unreliable, but a couple of things come to mind.

First, the customer called mainly because some programs stopped working. If things stop working it's not an "upgrade", its a whole new OS, and you have to market it that way, and wait for people to install it proactively. Anything else is irresponsible.

Second, reports like this one are suddenly multiplying. There is no real difference in my mind between starting the "upgrade" on Windows' own volition or offering the "upgrade" to the user so many times and in so different ways as to make it practically sure that he or she will accept it by mistake.

Microsoft is clearly confident in that its ecosystem is so solid in the desktop that nothing they do will change that. They are probably right, most of my customers are so heavily invested in the MS environment that nothing at all will make them change. One tried to switch away from Office to LibreOffice and, after a couple of years, had to backtrack licking its wounds.

So you have a monopoly, but also a saturated market. You miss out on the Web revolution because you don't like centralized services, you like distributed better, that's your business. Then you miss out on the mobile revolution because the interface is so different from the one you have, and in your religion there is only one commandment, and it is:"There is only one Windows, and all pledge loyalty to It". So God forbids that you make something imaginative, like another system that works well with Windows. Afterwards you foul your cash cow by changing the interface that was working (desktop Windows) to be usable in the touchscreen world, apparently ignoring that people are well capable of learning and using two different interfaces with ease.

So you prod your customers in the direction you want, even if you are not very sure of it being a good direction. It may be a winning strategy, who knows, not I, I have never earned the fat bonuses these marketing geniuses make. But in my book, prodding customers isn't a winning strategy.

This doesn't look good for Microsoft. It should be easy to confirm, as all installations should behave in the same way at the very least if they are running the same edition of Windows7/8/8.1

The fact that they can't give a simple Yes or No answer and a few screenshots about how this works makes it look like there is some sort of dodgy affair going on, like what was described earlier that the way to cancel is to use a tiny Close button instead of a proper Cancel button.

In my case the solution was completely disable the Windows Update service (denying the service from booting, not just change a setting on the control panel). No more Windows updates for me, but these days I no longer trust the service to leave it on.

I ran Windows Update last night, and the 'Upgrade to Win 10' (an optional update) was auto-selected.
The Windows Update page at this point had only one option to click. Begin installation of Windows 10.
Just like this: http://postimg.org/image/qkvw8... [postimg.org]
You had to go into "show all available update options" which is in small blue text. Deselect the optional update, so that you can select the "important" ones.

Today, I thought, I'll open Windows Update to see what the small blue text was, to be more accurate...and guess what... yeah the Windows 10 "optional" update is reselected, and if you bother looking at the image above, again the only option to proceed unless you "show all available update options"

The jerks at M$oft are drunk with corporate cool-aid and follow other objectives abusing their customers.Happens a lot, just look at any larger corporation, where the only goal it to increase bottom-line - take them to the cleaner!

It is not as if Microsoft does not employ people who are competent at designing and testing proper user interfaces: People who know and expect how users will interface with Windows Update.They expect people to install it by mistake.The forced update is nothing else but intentional douchebaggery.To blame the users is probably what they had planned to do all along.

They did it to my wife's PC 3 times.I had to go to fairly great lengths to stop it from recurring.Installed and deployed GWX Control Panel to stop it.Tell me: Why would GWX Control Panel even exist if this problem did not happen?

> You let me know when you have to suddenly go out of your way to prevent having your car replaced with a shittier version that spies on you.

Nailed it. This would be like, you can't get maintenance done on your car because all the mechanics will replace it with the shittier version that spies on you. Your only choice is to become a mechanic yourself to drive your car. That's ludicrous.

"Well, a computer science major with time on his hands can technically prevent the upgrade from occurring... for now..

I second that emotion, and have already offered my time and services to scour their event logs to show them when THEY CLICKED INSTALL. but no one is taking me up on it.
Pro tip, half of the people here and elsewhere claiming this happened don't even run windows.

The argument is that Microsoft set it up in such a way that all roads lead to Win 10 with the user never being able to flat out deny it. Microsoft setup Windows 10 as a 'potential' for all eligible machines to fall into, like gravity. Its wrong for Microsoft to set us on the edge of an event horizon and then blame us for falling in.

Hmm... This could be:
- Dumb users clicking "Yes, upgrade my computer" or
- A Microsoft conspiracy forcing millions of computers (most being used by businesses) to install a completely new OS on their computers without their consent.
I don't believe in Bigfoot or the Illuminati or Obama being a secret Muslim, so I'm going to go with #1.

You don't have that problem because Apple "sheep" buy the latest product every year.

My wife had a MacBook that was 4 years old. For the last year, or so, that she used it, more and more websites just wouldn't load using Safari. We eventually took it to an Apple Store and the tech said that her OS was no supported and she would have to spend $100 to upgrade to the latest version.

We left and she got a laptop running Windows. It still runs like a champ after 5 years.

You don't have that problem because Apple "sheep" buy the latest product every year.
My wife had a MacBook that was 4 years old. For the last year, or so, that she used it, more and more websites just wouldn't load using Safari. We eventually took it to an Apple Store and the tech said that her OS was no supported and she would have to spend $100 to upgrade to the latest version.
We left and she got a laptop running Windows. It still runs like a champ after 5 years.

In other words, you're proudly proclaiming you're not a sheep because you baaaaah to another corporation.

There's absolutely no comparing a reasonably open and Unix-based OS like OS X to Windows. If your standard of freedom and control is Linux or BSD, sure, Apple doesn't touch them there. But they have never done with Microsoft is doing now. NEVER!

There are three tiers of updates: critical, recommended, and optional.

Turning on automatic updates sets Windows Update to automatically download and install critical updates. It will prompt for a reboot if necessary.

There is an option to receive recommended updates the same way as critical updates. If this is selected, the same thing happens for recommended updates. Since Microsoft made Windows 10 a recommended update recently, a lot of people recently became eligible for automatic installation of Windows 1

No, they will download the upgrade files, they still have to decide to actually install them. What's actually happening is people aren't paying attention and end up clicking ok on the nag popups. Every. God. Damn.Time.